I don't know if it was because I'm too sentimental or what, but I was literally tearing when I was watching the trailer with the moving song by Kit Chan. I went to the cinema with hesitation actually,thinking that I might have too much expectation on it, and was kind of afraid that it would let me down. After watching it, I would say it absolutely deserves my expectation and infinite applause. It is probably the first Chinese animation for adolescent and adult audience, comparing to childish Pleasant Goat& Big Big Wolf and Bonnie Bears. The latter actually made nearly 300 million RMB in China. The plot of Monkey King is quite common, especially in western movies: the fallen hero's rebirth, but this kind of themes still attracts large portion of audience and wins lots of tears, including those of the two little boys who sat next to me during the movie. The animations and features are just impressive, maybe not as good as many of the western masterpieces, but definitely good enough to describe it as unprecedented in China's animation history. The bad thing is that, because they almost used up all their budget on the film's creation and modification, they literally didn't do anything on marketing and advertising. Something even worse is that, although I admire the crew's courage and resolution, they chose to compete with extremely fan-based Tiny Times 4.0 and Forever Young, which are acted by a bunch of idols with tons of fans in China. The two I mentioned already made more than 100 million RMB on their first day respectively, but only about 20 million for Monkey King due to the lack of exposure and coverage. However, I always believes that one cannot evaluate a movie only by looking at how much it makes, neither an actor nor a director.
Review of Monkey King: Hero Is Back
